The Potential of Ecotourism for Protecting Nature

Itakura Toshinori

Abstract

Ecotourism is seen as a solution of environmental issues in these days. Ecotourism helps to protect environment by three aspects, that is, direct effects, a way of achieving sustainable development and improvement in awareness of environment. Although there are many objections against ecotourism, they are incidental problems of ecotourism. Thus, they cannot deny ecotourism itself.

These days, ecotour is more popular with heightening consciousness of natural environment. Many people go to rainforest, sea or savanna to meet and know ecology of natural creatures. The United Nations determined the year 2002 as a year of international ecotourism so ecotourism was focused on by many people again. Although many people have heard the word ecotourism and they usually have a good image about it, they often do not know it in detail. Then why is ecotourism good for natural environment and how does it have a good influence on protecting nature? This paper clarifies usefulness of ecotourism for protecting environment in three aspects, direct effects, sustainable development and improving awareness in addition to examining its problems.

Definition

First of all there needs to be a clear definition of ecotourism in this paper because there are many definitions of this word. The definition of ecotourism in this paper is that ecotourism is tourism which is sustainable in ecosystem, promoting a better understanding about environment and culture and generating a feeling of appreciation and consciousness of protection defined by Ecotourism Association Australia (Beeton, 2002). Ecotourism is a compound word from ecology and tourism used by Hector Ceballos-Lascurain in 1983 firstly who was a specialist of environmental problem and architecture. In spite of many definitions, there are common elements of these definitions as follows: 1) ecotourism is activities based on nature contain agricultural views, and 2) the activities contain elements of education and explanation, and 3) ecotourism needs to be managed and operated by sustainable way. The reason for number 2 is that there are many natural documentaries in the media and environmental education is also done frequently in these days so people become to have consciousness or questions about environment. They seek informative travel rather than going around from place to place by bus to take pictures. Most of operators employ interpreter of nature and serve detailed information about nature and aborigines. The reason for number 3 is that if environment is not preserved, tourists will go other places if an attraction of nature is destroyed. It is not just an ecotour. Sustainable management contains restriction of number of visitors, their actions, cutting down waste, saving energy, souvenir used wildlife creature and so on. In addition, making use of local goods or people is also essential element of ecotourism (Beeton, 2002).

Direct Effects

The principal of ecotourism is nature so ecotour needs to take protecting nature into consideration. Ecotourism enjoy using something that has already existed so it does not build hard buildings. It helps to protect rather than exploit the environment as former resort development has. And the number of participants in a tour group is limited to small number to preserve environment or nature will be destroyed and people will not come there. To protect rare nature perfectly some areas are completely forbidden to enter by zoning. For instance, in the Galapagos Islands the places where tourists can walk are limited to only 0.5 % of all size of land (Ito, 2002). Some ecotours are conducted with the purpose to earn money for protecting nature. Nature will not produce economical products if people cut down the trees, but protecting nature or animals often need money. Masaaki Koganezawa a professor who specializes in management of wildlife birds and beasts in Utsunomiya University said in a personal interview, “The proceeds from tourism are used for research funds. Because of these effects, participating in proper ecotour suitably helps protecting nature.”

Sustainable Development

It is not too much to say that ecotourism starts from agreeing with the concept of sustainable development. Sustainable development to preserve environment is common sense among most countries and people after Rio Earth Summit in 1992. However, to practice this idea is very difficult in many aspects such as population explosion, practicality and so on. Ecotourism is seen as a good way of sustainable development. Beeton (2002) said because ecotourism finds the economic value of the environment, it connects with practice of raising consciousness of the necessity of protect environment. This economic value becomes an incentive of enlarging nature protection area, urging private landowner to recover nature or going toward protecting wildlife creatures.

Examples of Success

It is good to show examples of success for understanding the usefulness of ecotourism. Costa Rica, South Africa and Kenya all provide good examples. It is said that the first country which adopted a concept of ecotourism was Costa Rica. This country had destroyed forest over the course of several decades. Costa Rica was 72 % covered with forest in 1950, but the ratio became 26 % in 1985. The reasons were exploitation for fruits and beef, deforestation and slash-and burn farming. However, the biggest income of foreign exchange in Costa Rica is tourism industry now, because there are rich and marvelous nature and various creatures. To make use of this nature Costa Rica propels ecotourism (Paxton & Paxton, 1998). Ecotourism sometimes earns more money in comparison with previous industry. In fact, from the middle of the 1980’s many developing countries adopted ecotourism and generated higher income. Especially in South Africa income was increased by eleven times in comparison with stock raising (Kobayashi, 2002). Tourism can earn money by using the same thing again and again, thus, it is a famous admonition, people can earn money continuously by showing animals, but they can earn money only once if they hunt them. Elephants and lions build schools and clinics in Kenya. The biggest income of foreign exchange in Kenya comes from tourism by the 90 % of travelers who go on safari. One scholar said that one elephant in Kenya earns 20 thousand dollars per year and one maned lion earns 27 thousand dollars per year (Paxton & Paxton, 1998).

Return Profits to the Region

It is one of the essential elements of ecotourism that regional people must be involved as much as possible. This precept appeared from Africa, which discovered the hard way that protecting environment must involve regional people or it fails. Africa had been paid attention to its peculiar nature from early times. African governments tried to protect the nature by the way that they tore residents from the land to move hunting tourism to sustainable tourism. This forcible way caused a confrontation between national and park regional people who lost their economic base. Then, they poached to live and nature was menaced all the more. By this result, scholars, naturalists, national park and protecting environment organizations reconsidered that they cannot expect protection of wildlife creatures as long as regional residents do not get economic benefits. From this experience a model of present ecotourism was made that has both the purpose of protecting nature and developing regional residents (Kobayashi, 2002). Despite repeating the same words, it is important way of thinking that operation of ecotourism generates interests for regional society and it supports regional people to live culturally and economically. Tourists need to purchase goods or services in the local area as much as possible to achieve this purpose (Beeton, 2002). Otherwise regional people will go into nature to get bread for living like the African case.

It is natural for a business enterprise to seek larger profits. They can access to almost cheapest sources at the present global economic system so it is hard to use native sources or people, but it has caused destruction of nature. If the tourism development is done by large enterprises the difference among employees a sort of occupation and promotion occur. At one beach hotel in Okinawa many employees are part-timers or seasonal employees and their superiors are a few natives of Okinawa. Eco-resort gives native people preference because of their connections to native enterprises and because they know natural environment. They know how the native can participate in the resort, the best speed of development for keeping nature and how to interpret the nature or social life there (Tomonaga, 1993).

Using native sources is probably costly, but this is ecotourism. Then, some ecotourism must be abandoned because of international price competition, mustn’t it be? There is no problem. Inagaki et al. (2003*) explains as follows. Ecotour is expensive in general. However, because of lower prices in developing countries the cost is not so expensive. Therefore, the price comes from commercial value. Owing to each special characteristic, ecotours do not compete with each other. If a commodity is attractive and unique, the price can be settled at the international level of price in spite of low cost. It is good for developing country. Many developing countries earn foreign exchange by selling primary products, but the price goes down easily and price competition is very severe. In addition, tourism is consisted from many things so many people are employed, for example, a retail store, hotel, tour operator, guide, ranger, builder, garbage collector, etc. The ripple effect on purchasing is also expectable (Beeton, 2002).

Relation to Population, Environment and Development

Life of human beings menaces natural environment so population increase is disagreeable. It is confirmed that population increase will stop if people’s life level develops. So raising their income by the way which does not damage nature contributes to protecting nature. Ecotourism is one of the best ways. Here is an example of Asia about relationship with population and income. The birthrate of most Asian countries has been decreasing. According to the conversion of population by demography, population changes from high birthrate and high death rate to high birthrate and low death rate and next, low birthrate and low death rate. Asian case coincides with it. The income level per capita in Asian countries correlates closely with the gross birthrate. It can be explained economically. The utilities of children are dearness, workforce for family and security for parents’ old age. The costs are direct costs such as food, clothing, shelter and education and occasional expenditure for growing children. Because of increase of income the utilities will decrease by such as improvement of social security and decreasing necessity of child labor. And the cost will increase by increasing cost for such items as education or housing. Economic development has long been acknowledged as an influence of decreasing birthrate (Watanabe & Adachi, 1992). Increasing income is often very difficult for developing countries. Even if it is achieved, environmental pollution happens as it did in China. Ecotourism is a good way to achieve economic growth without impacts against environment. Tourism is a growing industry all over the world and it is the biggest industry. Also from this aspect ecotourism is recommendable. According to the statistics presented by World Tourism Organization in 2000, about 45 billion dollars was generated by the international tourism business in 1999 and one-fifteenth of the world’s people engage in tourism. The organization also estimates tourism will grow 4.1 % per year in 20 years from the year. It shows sustainable tourism is important and having potential (Kobayashi, 2002).

Before concluding this section, I would like to introduce words of Dr. Sid. He is pre-chief of CALM, the governmental organ of West Australia State controlling nature protection and land use. He emphasized that protection of environment does not last for a long time only by relying on people’s good will or volunteer. It is important to make a system that earns money and the money is used for protection of environment. One of the effective ways is ecotourism (Beeton, 2002). His words tell us the way of thinking of ecotourism simply and clearly.

Improvement in Awareness

It goes without saying that in order to protect environment it is very important that individuals have awareness of environment. Ecotourism helps to improve awareness of the environment. According to research in Japan done by the Prime Minister’s Office in 1996, many people think that one good way to deepen feeling of valuing nature is increasing places where people can come in contact with nature (Paxton & Paxton, 1998). It is ironic that the very people who cause deterioration of environment are usually people who live in developed countries, and people who join in ecotour are usually the same developed countries’ people.

A good point of ecotourism is that it places the urbanized tourists in the pure and simple beauty of nature which can affect the tourist’s mind and body powerfully (Yamada, 2002). By this aspect ecotourism is useful to environmental education. It is hard for children who do not have experiences with nature to explain and make them understand the importance of protecting nature or environmental issues. An idea of ecotour is the same as “Sense of Wonder” written by Rachel Carson (Kobayashi, 2002). In addition, ecotour provides the place where people who are interested in nature can communicate and exchange information, people grow as environmental professionals or NGOs introduce activities to their supporters (Kitagawa, 1999).

Ecotourism has an effect for making people living close to nature have greater self-respect. There are often a few jobs in the region. Having jobs related to nature lead to respect themselves and regional nature (Beeton, 2002).

Objective Ideas

With development of ecotourism the problems also have been pointed out. Some people have negative ideas regarding ecotourism. I would like to examine their arguments.

Direct Effect

One of bad effects of ecotourism is accepting exceeded carrying capacity or generating of ecotourism. Demand of too much firewood or graffiti on trunk corresponds to it (Inagaki et al., 2003). However, it can be solved by heightening education or ripeness of ecotourism. There are many opinions that ecotourism sometimes destroy nature by receiving too many tourists or gathering firewood, but these reasons are not acceptable because they are not ecotourism, only old nature tour.

In spite of consideration to rainforest, the ecosystem was changed by continuing construction of facilities for ecotour in Borneo (Inagaki et al., 2003*). In the Galapagos Islands tourists and inflows of commodities caused naturalization of wall lizards, bees, frogs and strawberries and so on. The number of species is doubled from original number (Ito, 2002). Like this, although notices were taken, natural environment is sometimes changed. It is a problem we cannot avoid. It is unfortunate thing, however, maybe the problem have become more serious if people did normal tourism. It is not a problem of ecotourism but all tourism or life.

Professor Koganezawa said, “Today ecotourism is becoming popular, but it might be better mass-tourism than ecotourism for protecting nature in the future. Because ecotourists go into nature deeply for long term so it might affect on nature when the number of ecotourists become larger. There is a phrase that ‘Take only pictures, do not take natural creatures or living things.’ But someone said it perhaps wrong because the flash from cameras might affect creatures or living things. Hiding or not discovered abuses might exist.” Surely, human beings do not know everything about nature. Ecotours are should be carried out very carefully. This problem depends on behaviors of ecotourists.

Sustainable Development

The Galapagos Islands is advanced area of ecotourism and it experienced some problems. Dr. Craig Macpherland who researches the Galapagos Islands pointed out the “danger signs” in 1998; 1) an inflow of population seeks business chance, 2) invasion and naturalization of foreign features going with an inflow of population and commodities, 3) plunderous marine products industry which happens attending on inflow of population, and 4) ways of tourism which cannot regulate by national park office. Inflow of population is forbidden by the Galapagos special law from 1998 and other measures have been adopted (Ito, 2002). These problems are serious indeed, but these come from economic growth not ecotourism itself. The area that people can walk is limited to 0.5 % of all size of land as I stated before. And the authorities are regulating the dangerous situation. It is too early to deny ecotourism from this case.

There are some criticisms or opinions of limitation of returning profits to local society. According to Matsumura (2001), it is said that the reason of good effect for regional economy is employing rural people to guide, but it is not always. The case of Iriomote Island in Okinawa most guides are from outside people because island’s people do not have a viewpoint of sightseeing. They live with nature closely so they have knowledge for relation, they do not have knowledge for viewing. In addition, outsiders appreciate the wonderfulness of nature more than insiders so they can explain the goodness impressively. Thus, employment opportunity of ecotourism is favorable for outsiders who come with having a longing for nature than rural people. There is the other pattern. Ecotours are done in Sabha State in Malaysia. Many employees are Philippine people in spite of Malaysian because Philippine people can use English. Employers want to employ native people, but they cannot use English well. English is indispensable still for tourism. Furthermore, capitals of lodges are from outside as a result profits are not returned to the region. “No matter how much it intends to return profits to local society, it is not easy to satisfy all regional residents in practice” (Yamashita, 2002, p. 704). This problem of employment is one of frictional unemployment. It often happens in ecotourism. Tourists will not come if there are few satisfactory services therefore it have no choice but to employ outside people. There may be no other way that regional people learn skills. Concerning the latter problem of capital, organizations which are united with NGOs and local administrations or communities have succeeded (Hayami, 2002). This type of organization which does not need to expand profits and relates to local society should be increased. If local people think that ecotourism does not have benefits for them, they may leave for other exploitations and it may destroy nature. Therefore it is serious problem. It must be overcome by efforts. It is the key to success to ecotourism as a system of protecting nature.

Some opinions exist that ecotourism is way of thinking that developed countries make use of developing countries. Ikeda (1996) pointed out while indicating Nash’s ideas, people who come from developed countries trying to relieve their stress caused by industrialization come to rest seeking rich nature in developing countries, but the residents are still suffering from poverty. If the characteristic of imperialism is that the natives become responding to its activities voluntarily, the boom of ecotourism is evidence that imperialism has expanded to the size of earth. Inagaki et al. (2003*) also pointed out, developed countries’ people enjoy an undeveloped area in developing countries as a leisure activity and ask native people to keep natural environment. It fixes the relation between developing countries and developed countries. Tanaka (2000) quoted the words of Inagaki, “When coming up with a plan to build a small dam for hydroelectricity in the area that there is only inconvenience small-scale and time-limited generator using heavy oil, ecotourists object to the plan because the river system will be destroyed.” From this case, he said that nobody has the right to force on people living in some destination the idea that “inconvenience is worth it,” especially ecotourists who return to their comfortable life and consume energy like taking a shower in everyday life. Ecotourism usually prohibits hunting which makes aborigines who live on hunting changed the job to agriculture. But some aborigines are not used to doing agriculture so they go to forbidden area to hunt animals (Yamada, 2000). And Ikeda (1996) said that ecotourism urges developing countries to go into global economy through use of nature. It is same as “fair trade” or “Debt-for-Nature Swap” done by NGOs. His words demand that developed countries’ people adhere to “morals of consumer” (p.86). These analyses are interesting and they are very convincing. However, I believe that ecotourism is one of choices given to developing countries for development. If they adopt ecotourism, they can earn money in worldwide level equal to developed countries. Most countries wish economic development. Ecotourism may well rest as one choice for development. Many developing countries have a hard time of developing enough as it is. But developed countries’ people have to approve of a right that every person makes a good living. So they must not criticize developments such as small dam Inagaki indicated on taking idea of sustainable development. Poverty is the biggest cause of destruction of environment.

Improvement in Awareness

Ecotourism limits the number of tourists who are allowed on a tour in order to preserve the environment so an ecotour is usually an expensive commodity. It contradictively reduces social role as heightening environmental consciousness. Native people cannot use ecotour owing to the high price (Inagaki et al., 2003*). It is unfortunate fact, but even if developed countries’ people often cannot join good events in their country due to cost. The natives do not need to use expensive ecotours prepared for outsiders.

Professor Koganezawa emphasized that “The biggest problem is participants. They sometimes do not have basic manners such as not throwing trash to grassland even they are interested in environment and know taboos. They give native people money or sweet confectionary that the natives never can get there. They do not have a right to join ecotours. It might be necessary to some kind of orientation.” Ecotourism have educational side, but basic manners are needed in advance. Lack of morals spoils usefulness of ecotourism.

I gathered various problems which have possibility of putting a function of protecting nature with ecotourism. As previously seen, almost all problems that professionals pointed out are incidental aspects, not way of thinking of ecotourism itself. They are operational points so they leave room for being improvement. We cannot doubt that ecotourism is one of the few keys left for developing countries to develop.

Conclusion

In conclusion, ecotourism helps to protect nature in various aspects and the problems argued are almost not related to a way of thinking of ecotourism itself but are incidental. Therefore ecotourism should be done with paying attention to these incidental problems. The ultimate purpose is protecting nature so ecotourism always should consider nature first. Some successful example will provide useful information. Ecotourism is still under argument. It may have developed from only an image. So the ideal may have been ahead of practice. However, it is same as many other environmental issues. Ecotourism must be argued more from now on, but it seems to have a great benefit on having the viewpoint that human beings live in company with nature. Eleven years have passed since Rio Earth Summit. In Yamada’s (2002) opinion the destiny of future earth is decided by operation of ecotourism because ecotourism exists in the center where it affects many related area. It must be important to exercise ecotourism with heavy argument after this too.

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